Work permit

If you don’t have citizenship in Korea, you likely require some kind of work permit to do an internship. Here, are some of the methods on how to be able to legally work as a tech intern in Korea.

Freelance contract

You can sign with a company freelance contract, which means that in legal terms you are going to be a freelancer for them. In reality, it isn’t going to change much of your internship, except maybe that you won't go through a lot of bureaucracy. However, I have to warn you that this method is not offered by all companies and you will not get research credits for this kind of internship.

Obtaining a work permit

Without changing visa

ISSS has made a guideline for this process. You will likely be going back and forth collecting documents and taking signatures. Please make sure to constantly update your recruiter on your progress. University needs several documents from the company such as - business certificates, information about the internship, contacts of your future supervisor in the company. It is good advice to warn your recruiter about this right after you get the list of needed documents.

After you get all the approvals and documents you have to go to the immigration center where you have to submit them. If you have collected all the needed documents, usually it takes not so much time to print the work permit in your passport. However, they can also ask for additional information, so again make sure you have contacts of your company and university officials so that you can answer immigration officers on the spot.

By changing visa (rare)

Change visa type to be able to work - it is a bit more difficult way to do an internship - if you are returning from internship back to studying you have to again change the visa type. I think this option is only suitable if you want to intern in Korea for a long period, like 6 months or more. It is because, if you are working then you have to take a leave of absence. However, as an international if you are taking leave of absence then you have to leave Korea, so usually long internships are not very feasible for internationals down here.